You have my noisy neighbors to thank for this one. After they blasted music at 1 in the morning (a very late hour for new parents), I couldn't fall back to sleep. It wasn't just the noise. A thought was eating away at me.
'There has to be a better way to do asynchronous online 8-player drafts'
We've done a very literal translation of booster drafting on the forums before. Crack a pack of 15 cards, remove one, post the remaining contents to the next drafter. Open a pack of 14 cards, remove one, post the remaining contents to the next drafter.
Rinse and repeat. 42 times.
42 times that each player has to pass a pack. The process was such a drag. So many bottlenecks waiting on players to catch up on their picks. Even if you pass a couple packs a day, the whole thing takes a good two-to-three weeks. And the ends of packs are particularly brutal. Open a 4-card pack, take the only card that is relevant to your deck (if there even is one), pass it on.
I started to think if there was a way to work backwards. Those tedious ends of packs, when you have 1 card left, 2 cards left, 3 cards left, was there a way we could get through them more quickly?
The count began.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 = 15. That's interesting. What if we keep counting for each player.
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8. Thirty-six.
Wait a minute. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Do it. Go one step further.
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9 = Fourty-five. It's beautiful. Three packs of 15. One-eighth of a cube.
From there the format pretty much writes itself.
How it works:
1) Each player starts with one triangle. The triangle consists of 9 rows.
A row of 9 cards.
A row of 8 cards.
A row of 7 cards.
A row of 6 cards.
A row of 5 cards.
A row of 4 cards.
A row of 3 cards.
A row of 2 cards.
A row of 1 card.
2) Look at your whole triangle. Draft 1 card from each row of the triangle.
3) Pass the remaining triangle (now 8-rows) to the next drafter. Repeat until all cards are drafted.
I used a quick bit of R code to generate triangles from my cube. Let's take a look at one to help visualize the process.
If you're anything like me, this will set your brain alight. There are so many directions you could take this. Gut reactions:
Naya Aggro
Green Ramp (no second color commitment yet)
Jeskai Tempo
Blue-White Control
...and we didn't even touch Dark Confidant!
I could spend a whole lunch break just chewing over these juicy options. Even within an archetype the answers aren't obvious. Does my tempo deck want Daze of Treasure cruise?
The best part of it all?
Eight pack passes per player. 8 versus 42! We could finish one of these drafts in what, two, three days? I am so excited!
What will the meta be like? Do you commit hard with your first pack or keep your options open in case you get cut off? How do you adapt to the delayed signaling?
And what would you take from that triangle?
'There has to be a better way to do asynchronous online 8-player drafts'
We've done a very literal translation of booster drafting on the forums before. Crack a pack of 15 cards, remove one, post the remaining contents to the next drafter. Open a pack of 14 cards, remove one, post the remaining contents to the next drafter.
Rinse and repeat. 42 times.
42 times that each player has to pass a pack. The process was such a drag. So many bottlenecks waiting on players to catch up on their picks. Even if you pass a couple packs a day, the whole thing takes a good two-to-three weeks. And the ends of packs are particularly brutal. Open a 4-card pack, take the only card that is relevant to your deck (if there even is one), pass it on.
I started to think if there was a way to work backwards. Those tedious ends of packs, when you have 1 card left, 2 cards left, 3 cards left, was there a way we could get through them more quickly?
The count began.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 = 15. That's interesting. What if we keep counting for each player.
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8. Thirty-six.
Wait a minute. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Do it. Go one step further.
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9 = Fourty-five. It's beautiful. Three packs of 15. One-eighth of a cube.
From there the format pretty much writes itself.
How it works:
1) Each player starts with one triangle. The triangle consists of 9 rows.
A row of 9 cards.
A row of 8 cards.
A row of 7 cards.
A row of 6 cards.
A row of 5 cards.
A row of 4 cards.
A row of 3 cards.
A row of 2 cards.
A row of 1 card.
2) Look at your whole triangle. Draft 1 card from each row of the triangle.
3) Pass the remaining triangle (now 8-rows) to the next drafter. Repeat until all cards are drafted.
I used a quick bit of R code to generate triangles from my cube. Let's take a look at one to help visualize the process.
If you're anything like me, this will set your brain alight. There are so many directions you could take this. Gut reactions:
Naya Aggro
Green Ramp (no second color commitment yet)
Jeskai Tempo
Blue-White Control
...and we didn't even touch Dark Confidant!
I could spend a whole lunch break just chewing over these juicy options. Even within an archetype the answers aren't obvious. Does my tempo deck want Daze of Treasure cruise?
The best part of it all?
Eight pack passes per player. 8 versus 42! We could finish one of these drafts in what, two, three days? I am so excited!
What will the meta be like? Do you commit hard with your first pack or keep your options open in case you get cut off? How do you adapt to the delayed signaling?
And what would you take from that triangle?
